‘Get to Know Lonesome’ has musician on the road
By Al Beeber on November 2, 2021.
Herald photo by Al Beeber
Ryan "Skinny" Dyck is ready to tour an album he recorded in 2020. He plays at the Owl Acoustic Lounge on Nov. 13.LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
He’s a sideman doing a side project and Ryan “Skinny” Dyck is finally getting a chance to tour a record he made in 2020.
And the well-known Lethbridge steel guitar musician is already planning another project in his mind.
Dyck, a long-time fixture on the Lethbridge music scene, recorded and released his first solo album under the Skinny Dyck moniker “Get to Know Lonesome” and is finally getting the chance to tour the record.
Dyck will be performing Nov. 13 at the Owl Acoustic Lounge in its new location on 3 Avenue South after hitting the road for shows in Edmonton, Banff and Calgary on Nov. 10-12.
Dyck, who gravitates towards 1960s era country music, wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on the album, except for one – a Merle Haggard cover.
His bandcamp.com page describes Dyck this way:
“A discerning purveyor of hot twang and battered heart honky tonk, Skinny Dyck is equal parts revivalist and visionary. ‘I love Haggard’ quips Skin; both elbows on the bar. An apprentice of the pedal steel guitar and an inventive penman of song, the obvious country music influences don’t serve to demystify his talents.”
The album can be purchased on vinyl or in a digital copy at bandcamp.com. He also has available on the site two other releases including “Skinny Dyck & Friends: Twenty One-Nighters” and “Canned Chicken Demos.”
His newest, which was recorded March 23-27 in Dyck’s northside living room on 1/4″ tape, features 10 songs and was produced by Dyck and Evan Uschenko for JBK Records. It was engineered, mixed and mastered by the Jukebox Kid.
Dyck’s wife Shaela Miller provided background vocals on some of the tracks.
The album came out in July of 2020 but touring has been delayed because of COVID.
“It’s the first record I’ve made under this moniker Skinny Dyck,” he said in an interview recently.
“Country music has sort of been my wheelhouse for quite some time now. It kind of leans on traditional sort of instrumentation and approach,” he said.
“At that time, that was pop music, a lot of it was, I guess. So I draw from a lot of that stuff, some of those same motifs.”
Dyck calls collaborator Uschenko “a great talent and creative mind. He certainly brought it to life both with his playing and production. He’s a big part of it,” Dyck said.
While the pandemic disrupted life for musicians, some challenges aren’t new, he said.
“More broadly, the same challenges remain that existed before COVID for touring musicians but maybe even more appreciable now as venues reinvent themselves and adapt to the new reality of things,” he said.
“Expectations were low” for the new recording, he said.
“They didn’t really exist. It’s something I had to do, it’s something I’ll always do is make records,” he said.
He wants to get in the studio next year to make a new record, which is already in his mind.
He has material for it and “it’ll be in the same vein, it’s fair to say. Surprises may exist but nothing so significant as to throw you off the road,” Dyck said.
Recording in his home provided opportunity rather than challenges, he said.
“Sometimes the limitations are opportunities in themselves because you aren’t afforded with all the time in the world or all the studio amenities or all the different personnel. You’ve got a tight budget, and this is when you’ve got to do it and this is what you have to do. You just do your best with what you got,” Dyck said.
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